One of the great unsung glories of Snowdonia is the meeting place of the Machno with the Conwy, deep in a rock chasm hidden from the general gaze by beech, oak and a scattering of introduced conifers, now magnificently mature. The other day we came down by Pandy Woollen Mill beside the thundering Machno. The river was swollen and brown with peat stain after heavy rain, but the mill is closed and awaiting a new owner, its looms silent until at least next spring.

We stood on the "new" bridge over the rebellious child of the sodden Conwy moors and looked downstream at the "Roman" bridge immediately downstream, now a slender arch of stone where pack horses once crossed. More than a century ago a grumpy farmer, sick of painters and sightseers trespassing to see the old bridge, attempted to demolish it. He removed the parapets, but the actual arch of this medieval relic defeated him - he abandoned his malicious scheme and what we see today is quaint, moss-covered and fern-hunt. There are plans to restore it.

A further 400 yards down the lane towards Betws-y-coed, a path to the right near an old flour mill leads to the very brink of the Machno Falls. They were white and foaming, plunging to a chocolate-coloured pool where no sensible dipper would be paddling now. But the finest is yet to come. A couple of hundred yards downstream the Machno gives up its identity as it is caught up by the Conwy and carried on for a short distance to be flung over the great rock step that creates the Conwy Falls. Here the combined waters, draining such a huge area of upland between Blaenau Ffestiniog and Ysbyty Ifan, crash below great trees and so down towards the narrow chasm that our Victorian forefathers christened Fairy Glen.

All this turbulent section of the Conwy and its tributaries, Machno and Lledr, were favourite subjects for some of the best 19th-century landscape artists, such as BW Leader and William mellor. To see the actual Fairy Glen, though, you must approach from the other, eastern bank and pay 50p at a stile. Woe betide anyone attempting to pass by without paying this wretched toll because one's offering is recorded automatically in a nearby outbuilding! Not all God's gifts come free, it seems.